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Project Goal

For the past eight years, we have worked to develop and implement strategies to make the power of GIS accessible to K-12 school environments. This has involved the creation of curriculum materials, teacher professional development workshops, and student programs.

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Business Problem Solved

Schools face a variety of constraints from limited budgets, outdated technology infrastructures, and overly constrained curricula. Creating viable, lasting solutions that enable in-depth inquiry in this environment has proven to be and ongoing challenge.

Technology Implemented

Most of the development work has focused on use of ArcView 3.x and hand-held GPS units. Recent work has begun a shift to ArcGIS 9 and a variety of online mapping tools.

Development Team Biography

Dr. Bob Coulter, Senior Manager of the Missouri Botanical Garden's Education Division, has led the development of Mapping the Environment since its inception in 1998. This work has included curriculum development and leading workshops for teachers and 4-H leaders across the country. Previously, he was an award-winning elementary school teacher for 12 years.

Jennifer Krause, Instructional Resource and Information Coordinator for the Garden's Education Division, has led the ongoing effort to gather data sets and format them for easy educational use with GIS. She also designed the graphic layout of the Mapping the Environment curriculum modules and website. Recently Jennifer and Bob have begun development of an online course website to support GIS educator workshops.